Weekly Meal Plan and Cookie Dough Balls

Christmas in in two days! Are you ready? We're ready. Well...one main present hasn't yet arrived, and it's not expected to arrive on time. It's one of the tough parts of living abroad. Things don't always arrive on schedule. Everything else is wrapped and tucked under our little tree, ready for Wednesday morning. My daughters are planning to set their alarms for 5 a.m. Christmas morning. I do so hope they oversleep.

I'm linking up to Menu Plan Monday. If you're visiting from there, welcome! I hope you'll hang around a while!

Here's what's cooking at our house this week:


Monday, December 23rd

Breakfast: Gingersnap Oatmeal

Lunch: Black Bean Pumpkin Soup

Dinner: Chicken and Dumplings

Snack: Cookie Dough Balls (below)


Christmas Eve

Breakfast: Cinnamon Rolls

Lunch: Leftovers and homemade bread

Dinner: Paleo Chicken Pot Pie,   Flourless Orange Cake 


Christmas Day

Breakfast: hootenanny and bacon

Late Lunch: Roasted Goose, Brussels Sprouts, Sweet Potato Rolls, Oven-Roasted Whole Onions, Carrots, Spice Cake with freshly whipped cream

Snacky Dinner: Deviled Eggs, gingerbread men cookies, leftovers, cinnamon raisin bread


Boxing Day

Breakfast: biscuits & cream sausage gravy

Lunch: leftovers from Christmas

Dinner: Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, leftover veg from Christmas, leftover sweets


Friday, December 27th

Breakfast: leftovers

Lunch: Simple Sesame Noodles and Baked Ham & Cheese Sandwiches

Dinner: leftovers for the kids while Mom and Dad go out on a date! We're venturing out for the first Mexican food we'll have since moving to Europe two Octobers ago. The restaurant is supposed to be pretty darn good, but having lived in the midwest may have spoiled us for Mexican. We'll see. I'll let you know how it was.


Saturday, December 28th

Today, I am going to begin stocking my freezer for future meals. I'm going to assemble this list of slow cooker freezer meals as my first go with freezer cooking.

Breakfast: donuts and fruit (they balance each other out, right? hehehe)

Lunch: sandwiches and chips

Dinner: Beef Noodles


Sunday, December 29th

Today, I'm going to assemble several breafast freezer/pantry meals.

DIY Instant Oatmeal Packets
Breakfast Sandwiches
Cinnamon Applesauce Waffles
Pancake batter (mixing it up and storing it in decorator bags to use later)
Pumpkin Spice Scones


Breakfast: breakfast sandwiches

Lunch: Loaded Baked Potato Soup and homemade rolls

Dinner: Meatball Sub casserole and salad



And now, I've got a recipe for you. You can take it to a Christmas pot luck, or you can wrap it up and give it as a gift. Edible, safe, raw cookie dough. What's not to love?

Cookie Dough Balls

total time spent: 30 minutes hands-on
total cost to me: $5 per batch, roughly
craftiness level: beginner

Ingredients:

2 cups flour (gluten-free or otherwise)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter at room temperature
1 cup chocolate chips (recommend mini but all I had was regular)

Beat butter and sugars together until creamy, then add in flour and salt. Mix in chocolate chips. Roll into balls and chill until firm.

Now, you can leave them as is, or you can dip them in melted chocolate. It's up to you!

Nom them relentlessly. Or, you know, gift them.

Gluten-Free Gingerbread Men

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper

So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!!

It's the winter solstice. The shortest day of the year. A great day for opening one Christmas present to soothe the anticipation of the big day, and a great day for baking gingerbread men and decorating them with your children. 

Kathryn was thrilled to open up her new Logitech gaming headset so she can start making her own Minecraft videos and Skyping with her friends. 

Bay received the earring holder she wanted so she can organize all her jewelry. 

The kids can now look forward to opening the rest of their presents on Christmas morning. 

Here's a gluten-free gingerbread recipe that you can use to feed all of the holiday revelers in your life, both gluten-free and otherwise. It's that good. 

I found this recipe and this recipe and this recipe and countless others for gluten-free gingerbread cookies but they all had either a.) too many ingredients b.) a missing ingredient from what I'm used to making gingerbread men with, or c.) had an ingredient I didn't want to use (like flax meal -- ew...not in my Christmas cookies). So I mae this up as I went along with a bit of guidance from the above sources, and I think you'll find this recipe quite satisfactory. 

Gluten-Free Gingerbread Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups gluten-free flour blend (plus more for rolling later)
• 1 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 6 T butter at room temperature

Directions:

• Heat oven to 325F and set your baking sheets up. Use Silpat or parchment on your baking sheets. 
• Combine all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. 
• In a separate mixing bowl, combine the egg, molasses, and vanilla. 
• Pour all the wet into the dry at once. Cut up the butter and add it to the mixing bowl. Mix on medium speed until all combined. 
• Check your consistency. Your dough should hold its shape in a ball. If it's too wet, mix in some additional flour, a couple tablespoons at a time, until it stiffens up a bit. 
• Divide your dough into three portions. 
• Between two sheets of parchment covered, I mean covered, in more flour mix, roll out each portion of dough to roughly 1/3" thick and cut your gingerbread however you choose. Really use a lot of flour. It's the key to great, gluten-free cut-out cookies. You don't want your cookie dough to stick to the parchment, and the recipe is built is a way that the extra flour will be fine in the finished product. We'll clean up our cookies later. For now, be generous with the flour on your work surface. To get the cut dough to the cookie sheets safely, I use a spatula to lift then up off the work area. These guys puff up just a little bit, so give them a little room, maybe an inch between cookies. 
• Continue in this way until all your dough is cut and ready to bake. 
• Bake for 12 minutes before checking on your cookies. Mine were done at the 12 minute mark, but yours may need a few extra minutes. 
• Cool completely before decorating. 

Now, about all that flour that's all over your cookies. Simple solution: when they've cooled completely, use a pastry brush to gently brush away all that excess flour from your beautiful cookies. It's worth using when cutting, and it's easy to get rid of when you're done. Watch:

Use a ton of flour when you're rolling and cutting. 

All the flour sticks to the cookies. It's okay. Leave them. 

Cool the floury dudes completely once their baked. 

Then, take out your handy-dandy pastry brush, and brush that flour right off. 

Voila! Naked as the day he was ...oh, nevermind. 

Now most people use royal icing for these cookies, but I don't care for the taste, or lack thereof. So I use a traditional buttercream frosting to decorate my gingerbread men. Here is a reliable recipe for royal icing if you want to go that route. If you want buttercream, here's a good recipe to use.

Have fun decorating your gingerbread family!

Yummy Homemade Peppermint Patties

I live in the lovely town of Velburg in Bavaria, Germany. This town is small, but they know how to throw a party. 

The Christmas Market was this past weekend, and it was our second time going. We love it. It's small, intimate, and has a good variety for such a tiny town. 

We were there at just the right moment to see Sainkt Nikolaus arriving on his motorbike.

 He then gave a speech in German, which was lovely even though I couldn't understand it. 

Then, he gave all the children treats. 

And finally, he departed the town on the same motorbike. 

We went to (another) Christmas market on Sunday. This one was at Schloss Guteneck near the Naab River. It was wonderful, as they all are, but we all agreed that this was the best one we'd been to in the two Christmases in Germany. We've got one more left for the season: Nurnberg. We're going there next week.

Here are a few photos from our latest Christmas Market adventure:

Food really is the best part of German Christmas markets. 

Now, it's Monday, so before I show you our craft du jour, I need to share my menu plan with you. 

I felt like "large roasted meat with veg" for our menu until Christmas. There is comfort in the scent of a meal roasting in the oven, isn't there? And this cold, dreary weather we've been having just begs me to cook large things. 

Plus, it's economical to roast meat and have it for a few meals. 

Here's the plan:

Breakfast items

scrambled eggs
hard-boiled eggs
bacon
sausage
Paleo Pancakes
Gluten-Free cinnamon rolls
Fruit Smoothies
oatmeal with toppings for the kids

Lunch items

leftovers
deli meats and cheeses (we bought five pounds of fresh smoked sausages and 100g of a 14 month aged cheese at the Schloss Guteneck market)
fresh fruits and veg
nuts
dried fruits
hard-boiled eggs

Dinners

Monday lasagna

Tuesday Whole Roast Duck with Balsamic Vinengar and Honey Glaze, Brussels Sprouts, and Carrots

Wednesday Duck & Veggie Stir Fry and making stock from the bones

Thursday company Christmas party

Friday roast beef, cauliflower mash, roasted carrots and onions

Saturday beef stew and paleo cornbread

Sunday  roast chicken, mashed root veg, broccoli

Baking projects: peppermint patties (below), fudge, Christmas cookies


Now let's talk Christmas crafting. Up today: something edible: 

Peppermint Patties (link)

total time spent: 90 minutes including chill time
total cost to me: just under $10 for one batch
craftiness level: beginner-intermediate

You will need:

• powdered sugar 
• mint extract
• butter
• cream
• either melting chocolate or chocolate chips and shortening (I used refined coconut oil)

See the link above for specific directions. 

A few tips:

• I ended up using at least 3 1/2 cups of powdered sugar. I didn't measure after the initial measurement of 2 1/4 cups, but it took a lot of extra tablespoons to make play-dough consistency with my filling. 
• I couldn't get my filling to roll into a perfect round. Admittedly, I didn't try for long. Also, I didn't much care enough to go for perfection. 
• I used chocolate chips and refined coconut oil (to eliminate the coconut taste) instead of melting chocolate. 
• The paper towel tube is pointless once you start cutting. The cutting action flattens out the bottom of the rounds anyway. You can hand-shape them after you cut. 

Non-Gritty, Totally Non-Weird Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies You Can Serve Your Friends

I am gluten-free. I don't test as allergic to the stuff, but my holistic health care provider back in Georgia helped me with an elimination diet that revealed the probable cause of all of my health concerns (My regular doctor suspected Lyme Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, any array of auto-immune disease and drew buckets of blood, stuck needles in my spine, and scanned my brain until I flouresced. Well, pretty much. And it all came back clear. I was diagnosed with "fibromyalgia" and sent on my way to suffer). 

Being gluten-free sucks sometimes. I mean, the bread? Horrid. And every baked good has a weird, gritty texture. It is not a fun thing, this gluten-free business. 

So Christmas comes around and I want to eat nummies. Not grit. I played with this recipe (which was not great as-is) until it rocked my socks, and I present to you, Non-Gritty, Totally Non-Weird, Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies You Can Serve Your Friends. Ahem. Official name. Copyright: Me. 

Non-Gritty, Totally Non-Weird, Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies You Can Serve Your Friends

See my starlight mint platter? 

They're a little like Lofthouse Cookies. Enjoy. 

total time spent: about an hour
cost to me: about $10
craftiness level: beginner to intermediate

Cookie Ingredients:

• 3-4 cups (start with 3, save an extra cup for later) gluten-free flour blend 
• 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup butter at room temperature

Frosting Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup plus 3 T butter at room temperature
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• almost 4 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• a dash of salt (don't leave it out)

Directions:

1. Heat your oven to 350F. Set two cookie sheets aside with parchment paper on each. 
2. Combine flour, xanthan gum, salt, baking powder, and powdered sugar in a bowl and set it aside. 
3. Cream butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in another, large, mixing bowl. 
4. Gradually beat in the flour mixture. When it's all mixed in, judge your consistency. I added an extra cup of flour AND a few extra tablespoons of powdered sugar. 
5. Form your dough into a ball and roll it out to 1/4"-ish thickness between two sheets of parchment paper that's thoroughly covered in powdered sugar. Don't skip that! This dough is sticky!
6. Cut it out how you like. Stick to simple shapes for best results. I used a 14 ounce can that I'd washed and saved. Place on the cookie sheets about an inch apart. They don't spread much at all. 
7. Bake six or seven minutes only. They will look undone. That's okay. You only want them to set, not brown. Remove to cooling racks to cool completely. 
8. For your frosting: While your cookies cool, beat butter, cream, powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla. Add the sugar a little at a time until you come to a good consistency. You can add food coloring here if you'd like. 
9. Spread on your cookies. Add sprinkles if you want. 

Nom them with your family and friends. See if they can tell the difference.